Posts Tagged ‘Cookie Diorio’

The United States government may be pursuing an isolationist policy but the Philadelphia Fringe is doing the opposite: opening its doors not only to the most creative American performers and performances but also to the best and most creative theater artists and their productions from around the world—overcoming the ancient fear of the symbolic Tower of Babel with people not understanding each other.

To show the worldwide scope of the 22nd Philadelphia Fringe Festival, we offer this spotlight on performers from abroad and productions by American artists that present a global perspective.

Theater writer Henrik Eger, editor of Drama Around the Globe and contributor to Phindie and Broad Street Review, among other publications, has lived in six countries on three continents and has visited Africa and Australia as well. He bids everyone a hearty WELCOME to the City of Brotherly Love—this year in 18 different languages: Arabic, Celtic, Chinese, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Latin, Polish, Romanian, and Spanish.

We start this year’s overview with a special welcome to two programs featuring a wide range of global creators:

INTERNATIONAL CREATIVES

Bienvenue & welcome to Montreal-based choreographer Sylvain Émard and Le Super Grand Continental. Le Grand Continental wowed audiences during its run at the 2012 Fringe Festival and has garnered enthusiastic response across the world. Fully realizing a blissful marriage between the pure delight of line dancing and the fluidity and expressiveness of contemporary dance, the celebratory event enlists hundreds of local people to perform its synchronized choreography in large-scale public performances. The world’s most infectious performance event returns to the front steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in an even larger spectacle of dance.

Bonvenon, willkommen, bienvenido, witamy, bienvenue & welcome to Do You Want A Cookie? from The Bearded Ladies Cabaret—a world premiere with an international cast. Do You Want A Cookie? serves up a delicious romp through cabaret history, with an international cast of artists performing a live revue of cabaret from the Chat Noir to Weimar nightlife to 21st-century drag. The all-star cast comes draws from around the world, including Bridge Markland (Berlin), Malgorzata Kasprzycka (Paris/Warsaw), Dieter Rita Scholl (Berlin), and Tareke Ortiz (Mexico City).

وسهلااهلا (ahlaan wasahlan) & bienvenu. Welcome to Tania El Khoury who lives in Lebanon and the UK with her multifaceted program ear-whispered. Little is known about Palestinian refugee camps and their communities. El Khoury presents her Fringe work in five parts through interactive performances and installations at Bryn Mawr College:

Bienvenido & welcome to the bilingual (Spanish & English) cast ofLa Fábrica performing Gustave Ott’s Passport. Lost in a foreign country, Eugenia is detained and thrown into a vicious maelstrom of miscommunication. This poetic and immersive Kafkaesque thriller delves into the question of immigration—exposing the mechanics of language and power. Some performances will be presented in English, some in Spanish, and some will be decided at the toss of a coin.

Disrupting the pervasive whiteness of Fringe, these artists are breathing fresh air in to the new works scene in Philadelphia with these exciting Festival offerings!

We Shall Not Be Moved @ Wilma Theater
Opera Philadelphia

What’s at stake here is America and its future. Who’s invited to participate?

On the run after a series of tragic incidents, five North Philly teens find refuge in an abandoned house in West Philadelphia at the exact location that served as headquarters of the MOVE organization, where a 1985 standoff with police infamously ended with a neighborhood destroyed and eleven people dead, including five children. This self-defined family is inspired by the ghosts who inhabit this home and begin to see their squatting as a matter of destiny and resistance. The group, named the Family Stand, is headed by self-appointed leader Un/Sung, and crosses paths with Glenda, a Philadelphia police officer, whose encounters with the family leads to a standoff that could threaten to repeat history. A co-presentation with Opera Philadelphia. More info and tickets here.

Andean Mountains is a digital journey through the mountains. Above all, it is a piece about personal geography: the way we relate to our place of origin versus where we’ve relocated. Featuring a performance by a juicy Colombian bear, the piece is both a Google Street View tour as well as an exploration of culture loss. More info and tickets here.

The Colored Girls Museum takes community matters into her own hands converting the three-story Victorian memoir museum into a Social Care Experience. Her new exhibits redefine the concept and practice of “urgent care” from triage to aftercare. Curators, artists, and ordinaries construct Colored Girlhood as an imaginative and powerful space. More info and tickets here.

“Stay woke and have fun” has become the motto drag songstress Cookie Diorio adopted to describe her philanthropic show Art of the Heel. Though many artists are civically engaged and tie their work into giving back to their respective communities, few do it in such a unique way as Cookie—one of Philly’s most talented drag queens. With Art of the Heel, Cookie is beautiful, comedic, and grounding all at once—a hard plethora of traits to balance in one performance. We reached out to Cookie to learn more about the passion and creativity behind this show.

FringeArts: What was the initial inspiration for Art of the Heel and the social justice aspect woven into it?

Cookie: Since November 2016 I have been intrigued by and experimenting with the idea of civically engaged art. I was constantly asking myself how I could use what I do as a singer, songwriter and drag artist to help promote social justice. I decided just to “do what I do” in a way that allows my audience to engage with and learn about different social issues and the organizations tackling them. Art Of The Heel as a project was directly inspired by a concert that I did last winter to raise funds and awareness for The Attic LGBT Youth Center.The name, thought up by my brilliant husband, is a play on the title of a well known book with the last word replaced with HEEL to represent what I do as a drag queen (and I don’t wear heels shorter than 5 inches!).

FringeArts: What attracted you to the three charities that you chose to be part of Art of the Heel?

Cookie: I have the utmost respect and admiration for the folks at Valley Youth House, Women In Transition and PennFuture. These organizations do amazing and hard work to propel our community forward and I value that greatly. In my cabaret acts, I talk a lot about my personal life and experiences. Many of those experiences have been shaped by some of the same issues that these organizations tackle: I have close friends and family who have struggled with homelessness and housing insecurity, I grew up in a matriarchal family and have seen the effects of gender-based violence and drug abuse, and I grew up in a rural community very much in touch with the environment. I have always been taught to stand up for the things that I believe in and I am proud to lift my voice in support of these causes.

Check out this eclectic mix of independent Fringe shows from the artists of the LGBTQ+ community!

(Image by Geoffrey Douglas)

An Obviously Foggot @ iCandy

Poison Apple Initiative

“So you’ve got a group of people who fetishize masculinity, who’re emasculated their whole lives, and you stick them in this place with all this booze and drugs and hierarchy. What’d you think was gonna happen?” A collision of found text, broken pop, and dance parties confronting internalized homophobia in gay bars. More info and tickets here.

(Photo by Monique Baron)

BIG CRUNCH @ Vox Populi

TOLVA/Sam Congdon

The world has gone rigid. Gender roles are strictly enforced by a ruthless government. There is a queer rage bubbling up through one cyborg’s circuitry, but can a single robot bring it all down? A queer sci-fi odyssey of self-discovery and rebellion blending solo performance, experimental electronic music, and video. More info and tickets here.

(Photo by Steve Belkowitz)

Carried Away @ JUNK Studio

Brian Sanders’ JUNK

I end up here, shame under pride, head on locker, denim near denim, skin against satin, disco within punk, leather around wrists, fist off canvas, lips about nape, hand for hand, looking back in time. I was carried away. More info and tickets here.